Admission

Interested students should apply through the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Details can be found at admissions

Research Faculty

The research faculty, their areas of research, and contact information can be found at faculty

Graduate classes in Evolutionary Genetics

ECO EVO 206. Special Topics in Evolution. 4 Units.

Extensive introduction to the primary literature of evolutionary biology. Topics include population genetics, quantitative genetics, neutralism, molecular evolution, evolution of genetic systems, genetic architecture of fitness, speciation, and macroevolution.

ECO EVO 207. Quantitative Methods in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. 4 Units.

Statistics for ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Emphasis on specific applications and underlying assumptions rather than on methods of calculation. Topics include experimental design, parametric and nonparametric methods, analysis of variance and covariance, and multiple regression.

ECO EVO 218. Advanced Topics in Evolutionary Biology. 4 Units.

Content and instructor will vary from quarter to quarter. Possible topics include quantitative genetics, experimental methods of evolutionary studies, mathematical modeling in evolutionary studies, and the evolution of genetic systems.

ECO EVO 219. Advanced Topics in Ecological Genetics. 4 Units.

Content and instructor will vary from year to year. Possible topics include coevolution, sex-ratio evolution, evolution senescence, plant population biology, and density-dependent selection.

ECO EVO 222. Statistical Learning in Ecology and Evolution. 4 Units.

Reviews basic principals of variance/bias trade-offs. Topics include models for prediction and classification, variable selection methods, cross-validation, tree based methods, unsupervised learning. Applications in ecology and evolution using R.

ECO EVO 235. Experimental Evolution. 2 Units.

Explores experimental evolution, which is now a well-established part of evolutionary biology. With the advent of genomics, it is now one of the most powerful tools for studying the genetic foundations of biology.

ECO EVO 253. Functional and Structural Evolutionary Genomics. 4 Units.

Function and organization of genomes analyzed from an evolutionary perspective. Review of some of the most recent experimental approaches in genome analysis and comparative genomics. Relevant software to analyze DNA and expression data is used.

ECO EVO 282. Fundamentals of Informatics for Biologists. 4 Units.

Students learn the fundamentals of bioinformatics and the unix operating system (including the shell and Sun Grid Engine) in order to assemble a eukaryotic genome.

ECO EVO 283. Advanced Informatics for Biologists. 4 Units.

Students learn advanced informatics including the analysis of: Poolseq, RNAseq, ATACseq, and ChiPseq datasets using programs such as bwa, tophat, cufflinks, DEseq, Trinity, Agustus, etc., in a unix high-performance computing environment. Statistical tests carried out and publication quality.

ECO EVO 285. Topics in Evolutionary Genetics. 2 Units.

Weekly discussion of recent research on evolutionary genetics.